SPAN 597 Race, Performance, and Possession in the Americas

This course will take a hemispheric approach to examining the connections between race, performance, and "possession"—a vexed concept that can refer to everything from property ownership to spirit possession. Over the course of the semester, we will explore the multiple meanings of this term and ask what it can tell us about the equally complex notions of "race" and "performance" by studying a diverse array of cultural phenomena from throughout the Americas (theater, performance art, films, literature, historical documents, music, etc.). For example: What sort of logical contortions were required to reconcile the fact that slaves—i.e., pieces of property—could speak, sing, dance, and even write or act? What is the link between the practice of spirit possession in many African-influenced religions and the histories of dispossession experienced by these groups? How might both instances of "possession" place pressure on liberal conceptions of subjectivity, and what can they tell us about the relationship between race and capital? Possible topics include: the exhibition of racially marked bodies and "scenes of subjection" (Sadiya Hartman); examples of racial impersonation such as blackface performance (what Eric Lott refers to as "love and theft"); slaves as objects of conspicuous consumption and the racialization of conspicuous consumption in the present; Haitian vodou, and links between zombies and whiteness in recent popular culture; avant-garde engagements with ritual practices of trance; struggles over copyright and cultural appropriation; and the politics of archives and museum collections. IMPORTANT: This course will be taught in English, with all materials available in the original (English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French) and in English translation. Students pursuing a degree in Spanish or French will be expected to read the original texts in those languages, and others with skills in these languages will be encouraged to do so as well.